Ava Gardner: Movie star was almost killed by a Hollywood legend at the Savoy Hotel

BRUISED and bloodied, screen siren Ava Gardner thought she would die in her suite at The Savoy

Battered black and blue by a crazed alcoholic wielding a broken bottle and threatening to kill her she had locked herself in the bathroom as her assailant raged at the door. But her attacker was no random madman.

Astonishingly it was movie legend George C Scott, star of films including Dr Strangelove and The Hustler, who went on to win an Oscar for Patton. Ava Gardner is famed for her boozing and volatile love life, with failed marriages to actor Mickey Rooney, bandleader Artie Shaw and crooner Frank Sinatra.

But a new biography reveals shocking details of her abusive relationship with Scott. “He repeatedly beat Ava brutally but she kept going back to him,” says Kendra Bean, co-author with Anthony Uzarowski of Ava: A Life In Movies.

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“She was almost addicted to him but he was relentlessly violent. In one beating he even broke her collar bone yet she kept pursuing him. She knew he was damaged but thought she could fix him even if it put her life in danger.”

Gardner called it “a dark and ugly” chapter in her life that began when the duo met in Italy filming John Huston’s 1966 movie The Bible and began a torrid affair. But Scott’s mood unexpectedly turned ugly one night in his hotel room.

“His eyes narrowed and reddened,” Gardner recalled. “His jaw clenched. When I got up to leave he leapt up and threw a punch. He hit me in the face. I was trapped in that room and he beat me for God knows how long until I managed to escape.”

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Ava Gardner is famed for her boozing and volatile love life

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But as their volatile fling continued so did the beatings. “No one understood why Ava kept going back to him,” says Bean. Scott pleaded for forgiveness and begged Ava to marry him, even though he was already married to actress Colleen Dewhurst.

When filming finished Gardner ended the tormented romance, fleeing to London. But Scott stalked her, tracking her down to The Savoy. “Ava was a naturally kind person and found it hard to reject him,” says Uzarowski. “I think she felt sorry for him. But he beat Ava up savagely and threatened to kill her assistant René with a broken bottle.”

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George C Scott mood unexpectedly turned ugly one night in his hotel room

Ava and René locked themselves in the hotel bathroom, finally escaping through a small window, fleeing into the night down The Strand. “Scott trashed the hotel room but he was never arrested and Ava was banned for life from The Savoy.” Gardner fl ed to Los Angeles but Scott followed her again, finding her in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “Scott beat her again and in desperation she called her ex-husband Sinatra asking for help,” says Uzarowski. “Frank sent some of his shady mobster friends to set Scott straight and she never saw him again.”

Though Gardner and Sinatra divorced in 1957 it’s hardly surprising she turned to him for help a decade later: their romance was the love of their lives and they remained close after their split. “She loved him dearly but they could not stand to be together any more than they could stand to be apart,” say the authors.

“They’d been drinking, got their hands on a couple of pistols and began driving around shooting out shop windows and mailboxes. MGM publicist Jack Keller was called to bribe the police with $20,000 to keep mum about the incident. The studio couldn’t afford to have their leading lady busted for a drunken joy ride.”

But Gardner’s career was soaring while Sinatra’s was fading when they wed in 1951 and his fragile ego couldn’t cope. “Frank’s self-esteem was plummeting and Ava felt helpless, unable to cope with his dark moods and self-pity,” say the authors. But when Sinatra’s career revived with his Oscar-winning performance in From Here To Eternity in 1953 he became even harder to live with.

“Frank had returned to his arrogant ways, seducing women everywhere he went just to spite her,” say the authors. “She was tired of his jealousy, his possessiveness and over-sensitive ego. She didn’t want to continue to suppress her personality for any man, not even for Frank.”

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Ava Gardner and her first husband Mickey Rooney

AS THEIR marriage foundered Ava fell pregnant twice and had two abortions, much to the horror of Catholic-raised Sinatra. He con- fided: “I shoulda beaten her brains out for what she did to me and the baby but I loved her too much.”

They divorced after six turbulent years but their passion never died. Gardner kept Sinatra’s love letters in a shoebox and in her later years friends often found her sitting alone listening to Sinatra records, drowning her sorrows in booze.

As wild as she was with Sinatra, Gardner was innocent when she married Hollywood superstar Mickey Rooney in 1942. “She was only 18 and still a virgin,” says Bean.

“He swept her off her feet and though she wasn’t initially interested he wore her down.” She experienced a “sexual awakening” but Rooney chased every girl on the MGM lot and after nine months Gardner filed for divorce.

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Gardner kept Sinatra’s love letters in a shoebox

Her second marriage to bandleader Artie Shaw in 1946 was equally fraught as he made her feel intellectually inadequate. They divorced a year later and she turned to drink, which became a lifetime addiction. Gardner’s lovers included Errol Flynn, David Niven, Peter Lawford, Robert Taylor, millionaire Howard Hughes and even a Spanish bullfighter but after Sinatra she never married again and remained haunted by insecurities.

“I was never really an actress,” Gardner confessed. “None of us who came from MGM was. We were just good to look at. I don’t enjoy making films. I just enjoy making money.” Gardner spent her final 18 years in Knightsbridge, where she died alone in 1990 with a drink in her hand, having lived with one terrible regret. “I am sorry I spent 25 years making films,” she confessed. “I am very conscious that as a woman I have not entirely fulfilled myself. After all I have no husband and no children and those are really the two reasons a woman has for being.”

● To pre-order Ava: A Life In Movies, by Kendra Bean and Anthony Uzarowski (published by Running Press, £20, on July 27) please call the Express Bookshop with your card details on 01872 562310. Alternatively send a cheque or postal order made payable to The Express Bookshop to: Ava Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth, Cornwall, TR11 4WJ or visit expressbookshop.com UK delivery is free.